


The Size of One's Hat

by frogy



Category: Page & Sommers - Cat Sebastian
Genre: Edwardian Period, F/F, Hats, Spies & Secret Agents, Undercover, fashion - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:42:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21783235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogy/pseuds/frogy
Summary: A developing relationship told through a reoccurring hat joke.
Relationships: Cora Delacourt/Edith Pickering
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	The Size of One's Hat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selenay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selenay/gifts).



> Hi Selenay! Happy Yuletide! I hope you are as enamored with Edwardian fashions as I am.
> 
> I wrote the whole thing thinking that both women were spies, but then when I re-read the book it only mentioned Cora being one. It didn't say that Edith _wasn't_ one, so I just went with it.
> 
> Un-beta'd

It would have been a perfect trick shot, if that's what Cora was going for. Unfortunately, she was aiming for the green. Instead, her ball veered right into the next green, whizzing this-close to the face of one of the ladies in the next party, hitting, in-fact, the brim of her straw hat with such force that hatpin or no, it flies right off her head tumbling end over end through the air, seemingly hovering for dramatic effect, before landing right in the middle of the pond that is a water feature on the next hole.

The women reaches up, patting her suddenly uncovered hair, and looks around wildly.

"Sorry," Cora shouts, running toward the golfing party ahead of them. "I'm so sorry about your hat."

Cora likes the new fashion of sporting women, but she'll take shooting and riding a bicycle over golf any day. She has bloomers among the trunks her lady packed for the house party, in the hopes that the hosts for the fortnight would have a bicycle, but no, they had to be into golf.

When she gets to the next group, she can see the woman whose hat met an unfortunate end better. The woman is tall and projects an air of seriousness, although Cora suspects there's more to discover under that because who can be serious for real while playing such a silly game. .

"I am learning that golf is not my sport. I will have to owe you a hat, Miss..." she trails off in an invitation for a name.

"Miss Pickering," the woman says. "I am afraid to ask what is your sport, Miss?"

"Miss Delacourt," she answers. "I have much better aim when we are shooting."

"I hope you will not be offended if I decline to have you shoot at my hat."

"Perhaps you should wear a larger hat next time." There was nothing wrong with Miss Pickering's straw boater, but Cora thinks she would look lovely in one of the new overly large-brimmed hats that have spread like wildfire from the stage to all the most fashionable lady's wardrobe. She herself has three already.

"Are you not confident you can hit my hat?" Miss Pickering asks, and Cora thinks there is a teasing lilt to it.

"Oh, I know I can hit your smaller hat, but for your peace of mind, bigger may be better."

"I don't know about that. It is not the size of one's hat that matters, but what they can do with it."

\---

  
Image Description: Line drawing of four women from the shoulders up showing off four Edwardian hat styles. The two on the left are straw boaters as Edith is described wearing.

  
Image Description: An illustration of an Edwardian woman playing golf, with a man standing next to her, looking at her, with the caption "One difficulty of the game: keeping your eye on the ball."

\---

Suddenly, Cora sees Miss. Pickering everywhere. Some of it is not a surprise. Miss. Pickering came shooting with their party in the country at Cora's invitation.

And Cora owed her a hat. 

They spent quite a diverting afternoon at the millinery shop finding Miss. Pickering a new straw boater, and a draped velvet toque for the upcoming season because it is rapidly becoming too cold for days out sporting in straw boaters, and Cora talked Miss. Pickering into the most splendid hat topped all manner of flora, and the most lovely bird perched right on top, and when Cora pressed, Miss. Pickering positively agreed that it was a fetching hat, simply the best, absolutely her favorite.

(Cora purchased herself a new wide-brimmed aubergine hat with a turnback brim, trimmed with the most beautiful pale grey feathers that she just knew would match the trim of her newest walking suit, but that is not important at the moment.)

They took tea after at the club, and it was a charming day all around.

But the last place Cora expects to see Miss. Pickering about town is out in the torrential downpour heading East with her umbrella down at her side instead of opened to keep the water off her. It looks like she's been out for a while like that, the stiffeners in her hat succumbing to deluge, so that the brim is doing nothing but dripping more on poor Miss. Pickering's face.

"Stop the carriage," Cora says, opening her umbrella. before stepping out, and shouting for Miss. Pickering.

Miss. Pickering looks around, startled by her name before catching site of Cora.

"What are you doing out in this weather? Why are you not using that umbrella you are carrying?" Cora asks as she catches up to Miss. Pickering. 

"I'm fine," Miss Pickering says, not answering any of Cora's questions.

"Let me give you a ride, my carriage is right here," Cora gestures back to where the carriage is now three quarters of a block back. Miss. Pickering has not paused in her brisk pace to talk to Cora, so Cora has no choice but to keep pace as they stride quickly down the street.

"It's fine, I'm only going another few blocks," Miss. Pickering says. "I'm turning right here, so I will let you go. It was lovely running into you." It is obvious that Miss. Pickering is trying to put an end to this conversation. Well, it is time she learn Cora doesn't let mysteries lie. 

"Well then," Cora says, deliberately not taking the hint, "let me walk with you. We can share my umbrella," she says, finally getting the pause to open it. She doesn't give Miss. Pickering the option to refuse, taking off in the direction they are both going.

Miss. Pickering follows until the next corner, where they turn the same direction yet again, and again, and again, until they are outside the rundown office block that is Cora's destination. She wants to keep going wherever Miss. Pickering is going, keep the rain off her beautiful face, flushed pink from the cold. It is damn unpleasant, but she cannot deny the way it makes Miss Pickering's face delightfully rosy.

But Miss. Pickering shocks Cora when she says, "Well, this is me."

"Oh. Me as well." 

They stand outside the door looking at each other. If it were not raining they might be stymied there for longer, but Miss. Pickering breaks the stalemate. She opens the door and Cora follows her in quickly.

Cora closes her umbrella and deposits it in the umbrella stand. Now that they are out of the rain, Miss. Pickering does the opposite, opening the umbrella she refused to use when she needed it, and Cora now sees why. It has a huge gash in it, the fabric fluttering in tatters, evidence of something violent happening to it. "I guess I need a new umbrella," Miss. Pickering says. 

Miss. Pickering then pulls the hat pin from her drooping, dripping hat, and removes it from her head, looking at it sadly. "I shall have to get another new hat, too." She looks up at Cora. "Perhaps I can tempt you to another day at the millinery, Miss. Delacourt?"

"Please, call me Cora," she says. "We are co-workers after all, and friends, I think?"

"Of course, and I am Edith of course."

"Well then, Edith, I would be delighted to join you at the millinery. Perhaps a larger hat next time would keep the water off you better."

"I don't think the size of the hat would matter in this case," Miss. Pickering, no, Edith says.

"Bigger is always better," Cora says.

"I don't think it is the size of the hat that matters in this case, but what you do with it."

\---

  
Image Description: Three fashion illustrations of women wearing purple Edwardian walking suits, similar to the one Cora mentions buying a coordinating hat for.

\---

Cora and Edith have been at this frankly ridiculous assignment for way too long. Find proof that someone is undermining national security and they are an unstoppable force. But figure out how to open the conversation with a potential new recruit for Templeton and they wind up tailing the guy for weeks with almost no movement.

And now they are at their mark's club, yet again failing to get an introduction. Templeton could open the door, but they are going to have to be the ones to make the connection. 

If they were there for an evening's worth of enjoyment,Cora would find the club a delight. It's a queer place, men sitting with men, women with women, and some dressed as the other. Edith has shown no sign of concern over the clientele, and Cora can't help but read hope into that. They banter and dine together and flirt, but Edith is proving a harder nut to crack than any mark. But they are here on a job, so instead of finally making her move, Cora can only sigh and turn so that her back is to the room, her hat blocking her and Edith from view.

"I think today is going to be a loss," Edith says. Their target is sitting at the bar. He's talked briefly with two different gentleman who've approached him, but hasn't taken either of them up on whatever they were offering. Cora's not sure if that's because they weren't offering anything he wanted, or if it's because he's caught on that he's being tailed. If it's the first, she could approach him with her usual. If it's the second, well...

"I have an idea," Cora says.

"What?" Edith says.

"Do you trust me?" Cora asks.

Edith looks at her like it's a dumb question, but Cora isn't moving forward on an unspoken word. When the silence has stretched on long enough to be uncomfortable Edith gets it, finally says "yes."

Cora spins them around with hands steady on Edith's waist, trading their places so she has her back to the wall and Edith has hers to the crowd. They are a lot more exposed like this, Edith's smaller, but still fashionable hat, is wrapped in green silk taffeta and adorned with a taxidermy sparrow, wings spread as if it were ready to take flight, a real marvel of millinery, but small and contained as any bird in the park. 

But the hat is not the point, and if pauses to worry she won't actually do it. So Cora takes a deep breath and kisses Edith. Edith freezes for a second, and Cora can't let herself worry, she just can't, and then Edith is kissing her back. 

Cora lavishes in the feeling of Edith's lips on hers so much softer than the serious expression Edith always wears. She tastes faintly of the marmalade Cora knows Edith slathers on her scones at every chance they get. The kiss is a dream, and Cora loses track of herself.

When Edith pulls back, it comes rushing back in, where the are, in a pub, where anyone could have seen them kiss, entirely too exposed, on a job for goodness sake, where they are supposed to be recruiting for, not indulging in fantasies, no matter how close they might seem to be coming true. 

"I'll go get us a drink," Cora says, pulling herself together, reminding herself she had a reason for here and now.

Edith mumbles something to the affirmative and Cora hopes she didn't just ruin the best thing she has going in her life.

She slides up to the bar, ordering two Pimm's Cups, and nods casually at the man they've been tailing. No need to tip him off if he hasn't noticed.

"So I guess that display means you're not looking to take me in for unnatural acts," the mark says. 

She guesses he noticed. Honestly, she'd be worried about his future as an intelligence agent if he didn't. But this assignment is finally looking up, so she smiles at him and says, "we're actually here about a job."

She's got a meeting with him set up before the ice can melt in drinks she's ordered.

Cora's glad at the work progress, but she's got a much more important conversation to have with Edith, so she collects the glasses and heads back to where she left Edith. 

Edith doesn't waste any time. "You kissed me."

"I did," Cora says.

"But why?" Edith asks.

"Because I wanted to," Cora says. Honesty isn't a skill she's cultivated. Kissing, sure, she can do that. Seducing too, and shooting and lying and talking strangers into accepting a job. That was the easy part.

"Here? Now? On the job?" Edith sounds surprised and confused.

But even her questions give Cora the hope to go on. "So it's not the kiss you object to?"

"Of course not," Edith says, like there's anything of course about it. "I want to do it again."

"Good. So do I," Cora says, more truth spilling out. "But we were never going to get anywhere sneaking around on mark, he had caught on to being tailed." 

"Oh," Edith says, putting it together. "Two women, hiding behind my gigantic hat at a queer watering hole? There was no way he could think that we're looking to recruit him, when the obvious answer was that we were looking to have the place raided, and him thrown in the pillory. He couldn't have known we're one of them."

"Well, now he knows that. And now we know that," Cora says, because how could he have known if she didn't even know. But, "wait, my hat is not ridiculous."

"It is large enough to hide two grown women behind," Edith says.

"That was intentional! We were sneaking! Besides, it's fashionable!" Cora says.

"But you turned us so the mark could see past my little hat."

"Bigger is always better," Cora insists. She refuses to hear a word against her hat. "It wasn't your little hat that solved the recruitment problem, that was all me. It's not the size of the hat that matters in this case, but what you do with it."

\---

  
Image Description: A portrait photograph of an Edwardian woman wearing a hat with full taxidermy birds on the side of it. The hat is probably larger than the one Edith is wearing here.

\---

"I have the letter we need," Edith says from where they have snuck off from tonight's dinner party in a series of dinner parties that make up the country house party they've been at for the last week and a half. 

Cora would have enjoyed the picnics and the outings and the dinners a lot more if they were not there to find proof that their host was selling state secrets. 

Also, if the gentlemen were not so intent on keeping Cora and Edith company at every possible turn. She's had princes and stars of the stage and men with untold fortunes, and the way these country bumpkins think they can paw at her during and evening's dancing is frankly insulting. Thankfully, tonight's dinner and dancing was livened up by the addition of two local families within easy carriage distance for an evening's entertainment, and more importantly the families' daughters. After days of striking out with she and Edith, the gentlemen seemed more than happy to try their luck on some fresh-faced country girls.

This is the first time they have been able to sneak off together and it's paid off. Cora might be both the beauty and brains in their operation. But Edith is the brains, making quick work at picking the lock of first the door, and then the locked compartment in the locked desk drawer, as the most likely hiding place for those types of secrets. And Edith has no trouble recognizing the not nearly sophisticated enough cipher of the letters uncovered immediately.

Edith is still tapping her finger on the final letter, mumbling letters and words as she works out what it says in her head while Cora stands by the door on look-out.

"Let's take them and get out of here." Cora glances at the clock, mentally counting out how many waltzes fit into the time they've been gone, how many times they could swap partners before their presence is missed, and they are beginning to push it.

"Take them where? There's no place to hide them in this ridiculous get-up." 

Edith isn't wrong. Her usual evening wear is just a touch-less severe than her favored walking suits, but Cora wheedled and batted her eyelashes and got Edith into a new gown for this assignment, a form-fitting velvet number with the popular low, wide neckline showing off those tantalizing collar bones. Cora herself is in a gown with the same neckline, but that's where the similarities end. She is bedecked in alternating pink and lace ruffles, fading from vibrant fuchsia through the palest peony, the layers fanning out as she spins. The décolletage it shows off is perfectly distracting to young country gentleman. 

(The first time Cora wore this gown on assignment with Edith, Edith admitted she was not immune to its distracting qualities, and Cora decided exposure was the best way to combat the problem.)

"Or you can just give them to me now," Cora says.

"What are you going to do with them?" Edith asks even as she hands them over.

Cora reaches up and parts the frankly overwhelming cloud of feathers on her hat. Normally hats like this would be more appropriate for tea, but she needed somewhere to hide her revolver. And this is a small country party with hardly anyone important enough to be chuffed over her hat. Behind the feathers there is a hat band, and she tucks the letters right inside. When she lets go of the feathers, and fluffs them back up, the letters are completely hidden.

"And to think, you thought my hat was too big. I've told you, bigger is always better," Cora says.

"I don't think it is the size of the hat that matters in this case, but all those ridiculous feathers."

\---

  
Image Description: Three images next to each other. The first is a photograph of an Edwardian woman from the shoulders up. She is wearing an enormous hat that looks like a cloud of white feathers. The hat is roughly twice as tall and twice as wide as her face. It is the type of hat you can hide secrets in. The second photograph is of famed Edwardian beauty Camille Clifford wearing a black velvet evening gown similar to the one Edith is described wearing. The third photo is of an Edwardian evening gown on a mannequin. The gown is made up of pink ombre lace ruffles like the gown Cora is described wearing.

\---

Everyone knows the story about the poor bird who met its end shot right off Edith's merry widow. 

Well, the bird might say it met its end before it was stuffed and used to adorn Edith's hat, but after it really was nothing more than detritus of singed feathers.

Cora maintains she could have hit the bird on a much smaller hat.

("I'm sorry I ruined your favorite hat!" Cora said.

Edith doesn't seem too worked up about it. "I guess you will just have to pick out a new favorite for me."

"I'm sure we can find you a bigger one next time," Cora says. "Bigger is always better."

"Whatever you say, dear.")

\---

  
Image Description: A political cartoon of some sort that the creator of this work finds incomprehensible without the historic context the original audience would have. It depicts a woman in a yellow dress on the right with a giant black hat decorated with feathers. The woman has a shotgun and is shooting at white birds that fill the left side of the cartoon.

\---

Things have been quiet at the home office lately, too quiet if you ask Cora, but no one is. Edith is delighted by the break, insisting that Cora accompany her to any manner of theater, where Cora has not been tasked with seducing a single audience member or shooting a single popular performer. She almost doesn't know what to do with herself at a show without an assignment. Enjoy the theatre she supposes. 

So here Cora is, loitering outside the theater because Edith had some last minute errand to run for the office, but swore she would meet Cora here before the first act.

With no mark to whom she needs to instigate a natural introduction, Cora had taken to walking up and down the block to keep herself amused until Edith joined her. Which is why she was just passing the alley that ran behind the theater when she heard a commotion. 

She turned at the noise. It was dark and shadowed in the alley, even though the street was still lit by the setting sun. So it took her a moment to realize what she was seeing.

A man grabbed at the other figure in the alley, a figure that Cora was intimately familiar with. But before Cora could process what was happening, before she could turn understanding into action, before she could do anything, Edith reaches up and pulled the pin out of her hat. No, not her hat. Cora's hat, that she must have put on leaving Cora's rooms this morning, larger than anything Cora has been able to cajole Edith into purchasing for herself. 

And Edith stabbed her attacker with the hat pin, one quick jab, and then another, which is all it takes to have the strange man running off, back down the alley. He was clearly expecting an easy mark of a fashionable woman, not prepared to do anything when faced with resistance. 

Cora knows all about those expectations. But Edith is their smarts, the one who thinks through problems when Cora is more likely to bulldoze through them. She's never seen Edith fight before. It's captivating and terrifying in equal measure.

Edith doesn't seem to be either captivated or terrified by the experience, simply straightening her jacket and re-pinning her hat before she turns and notices Cora standing their watching.

"I had my pistol," Cora says. "I could have shot him for you."

"It's fine," Edith says, taking Cora's arm. "I had him."

Cora brings her opposite hand up to cover where Edith's hand. Cora fears the terrifying might be winning out. She wants to wrap Edith up, keep her safe and protected and with her for always. 

Edith must realize some of what Cora is thinking because she squeezes Cora's arm, and repeats "I'm fine," and to lighten the mood, "aren't you the one always telling me how wonderful these great, honking hats are?"

Edith is right. "And aren't you the one always telling me it's not the size of the hat but what you do with it?" Cora says, letting Edith distract her from her worries. It feels right, the two of them walking together, bantering and flirting, and Cora has a fleeting thought that she could spend the rest of her life just like this.

"But in this case," Cora continues, "it was the size of the hatpin that mattered."

"And what I did with it."

\---

  
Image Description: An illustration of an Edwardian woman putting on a hat. She has one a long hatpin held in her mouth, and a second long hatpin held in her hands. 

  
Image Description: An illustration of a close-up of a woman's face. She has an Edwardian hairstyle and a hat which goes out of frame. Surrounding her face are three small men who have been stabbed straight through by hatpins that are roughly the size of jousting lances in comparison to the size of their bodies. 

  
Image Description: A small excerpt from an Edwardian era newspaper. On the left, the headline reads "Stuck Hatpin Into a Masher: Kansas Girl Gave an Elderly Exponent of the 'Goo Goo Eye' a Hard Jab in a Fifth Avenue Coach, But she believes in reforming the gentleman ogler, who, in her mind is a greater evil than the (indecipherable) Hobo." On the right, there is an illustration of a woman brandishing a hatpin at the man sitting next to her. It is captioned "Miss Leoti Blaker, of Kansas, stabbing elderly masher with a hatpin in Fifth Avenue coach."

**Author's Note:**

> Did I write an entire F/F 5+1 fic based around about a size joke. Yes, yes I did. 
> 
> I love hats. 
> 
> And I love Edwardian fashions. Edwardian is hands-down the most attractive historical period and I had so much fun with the clothing, which is all more or less historically accurate as demonstrated by the pictures throughout.
> 
> And there was a whole thing about ladies using hatpins as weapons.
> 
> Is anything else about this historically accurate. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
